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Books in Arts and humanities

Elsevier's Arts and Humanities titles encompass a rich spectrum of scholarship that explores human culture, history, philosophy, and creative expression. These works offer deep insights into language, literature, visual arts, and critical theory, supporting the academic community in understanding diverse perspectives and cultural legacies. Designed for scholars, educators, and students, this collection bridges classic studies with contemporary issues, fostering a deeper appreciation and knowledge of the human experience.

  • People: An International Choice

    The Multilateral Approach to Population
    • 1st Edition
    • Rafael M. Salas
    • English
    People: An International Choice: The Multilateral Approach to Population focuses on the United Nations Fund for Population Activities' (UNFPA) international population policy, with emphasis on its multilateral approach to the world population problem. It examines how the UNFPA has tied its population programs with general social and economic progress. The methods that were used in building up the Fund to serve as an honest broker between the developed and the developing countries, as well as its successes and failures in responding to requests for aid, are discussed. This book is comprised of 10 chapters and begins with an overview of the UNFPA and its principles with respect to population problems. UNFPA has three quite different constituencies within the United Nations system whose support it needs to remain viable and to develop effective programs: the donors (primarily in the developed world), the recipients (primarily in the developing world), and the organizations carrying out UNFPA-financed programs. Subsequent chapters consider the UNFPA's early population programs and the steps it has taken to address the growing population worldwide, including staff recruitment and fundraising. This monograph should be of interest to those concerned with public sector management, development assistance, and population programs, or with improving international relations.
  • The Abilities and Achievements of Orientals in North America

    • 1st Edition
    • Philip E. Vernon
    • David T. Lykken
    • English
    The Abilities and Achievements of Orientals in North America is concerned with the study of the abilities, achievements, and personality characteristics of oriental immigrants and their descendants in North America. The book attempts to set a correlation between the cultural background from which the immigrants came and their history in North America, and to discover the implications for psychological theory. The text contains discussions on the problems of heredity, environment, and acculturation; racial and ethnic differences; and a comparison of biological, environmental and cultural differences between orientals and occidentals. Sociologists, psychologists, ethnologists, historians, and people who wish to study oriental character traits will find the book very insightful.
  • Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation

    • 1st Edition
    • Alan S. Blinder
    • English
    Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation discusses the national economic policy and economics as a policy-oriented science. This book summarizes what economists do and do not know about the inflation and recession that affected the U.S. economy during the years of the Great Stagflation in the mid-1970s. The topics discussed include the basic concepts of stagflation, turbulent economic history of 1971-1976, anatomy of the great recession and inflation, and legacy of the Great Stagflation. The relation of wage-price controls, fiscal policy, and monetary policy to the Great Stagflation is also elaborated. This publication is beneficial to economists and students researching on the history of the Great Stagflation and policy errors of the 1970s.
  • Casebook of Organizational Behavior

    • 1st Edition
    • Andrew J. Dubrin
    • English
    Casebook of Organizational Behavior provides a panorama of absorbing, appropriately complex, modern cases from a diversity of work and organizations. The cases chosen are designed to illustrate a wide range of organizational behavior concepts and principles, those ordinarily described and discussed in any comprehensive textbook in organizational behavior. This book is organized into five parts encompassing 44 chapters. It rests upon a foundation of cases about human behavior in organizations drawn from a wide variety of settings. Cases in each chapter are chosen to illustrate concepts that fall under the particular chapter heading, but the classification is not rigid. Each case is accompanied by several questions designed to focus the student's attention upon some of the more important issues raised by the case. After a brief introduction to guidelines for case analysis, this book goes on focusing on individual cases, structured under the general topics of work motivation, the human element in decision making, stresses in managerial and professional life, and political maneuvering in organizations. The next two parts are devoted to cases of small-groups and organizational behavior. Emphasis in small groups is places upon cases that have the most relevance for knowledge workers, including managers, professionals, technical and sales personnel, while in organization behavior focuses on bringing about changes in organizations, yet many of these changes are initiated at the individual and small-group level. This book is of value to college and university undergraduate and masters level courses, and in programs of management development.
  • Inequality in American Communities

    • 1st Edition
    • Richard F. Curtis + 1 more
    • Peter H. Rossi
    • English
    Inequality in American Communities is an empirical study of inequality in U.S. communities and its impact on individual Americans. The data for this study come from sample surveys in six American cities differing in size and region. In each survey, male heads of households were asked about attributes that ranked them in the system of inequality and about a variety of attitudes and behaviors that might be affected by their ranks. The analyses seek to determine how social rank affects various attitudes and behaviors and compare these effects from community to community. Comprised of 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of theoretical assumptions about community stratification, with particular reference to how a person's life is shaped by his position in a local structure of inequality. The discussion then turns to patterns of social stratification in six cities: Columbus (Ohio), Linton and Indianapolis (Indiana), and Yuma, Safford, and Phoenix (Arizona). The distributions of various rank variables, such as income and education, in these cities are described, along with the ways in which they are related to form systems of inequality. A basic model of the processes of stratification is also presented. The remaining chapters explore the consequences of social rank and cover topics ranging from social participation and political ideology to anomia and intolerance. This monograph will be of interest to sociologists.
  • Economics Private and Public Choice

    • 1st Edition
    • James D Gwartney
    • English
    Economics: Private and Public Choice is an aid for students and general readers to develop a sound economic reasoning. The book discusses several ways to economic thinking including six guideposts as follows: (i) scarce goods have costs; (ii) Decision-makers economize in their choices; (iii) Incentives are important; (iv) Decision-makers are dependent on information scarcity; (v) Economic actions can have secondary effects; and (vi) Economic thinking is scientific. The book explains the Keynesian view of money, employment, and inflation, as well as the monetarist view on the proper macropolicy, business cycle, and inflation. The book also discusses consumer decision making, the elasticity of demand, and how income influences demand. The text analyzes costs and producer decisions, the firm under pure competition, and how a competitive model functions. The book explains monopoly, and also considers the high barriers that prevent entry such as legal barriers, economies of scale, and control over important resources. The author also presents comparative economic systems such as capitalism and socialism. This book can prove useful for students and professors in economics, as well as general readers whose works are related to public service and planning in the area of economic development.
  • Communication in Development

    • 1st Edition
    • W. P. Robinson
    • English
    Communication in Development is composed of papers derived from two sources. An International Conference on Social Psychology and Language was held in Bristol in July 1979. Considerations of space rather than merit prevented some of the papers, given in supplementary sessions on language development, from being published in the proceedings. These papers are published in this volume. Also included are recent and hitherto unpublished papers from European researchers working in the field of language and cognitive development. The contents of this volume range from the early non-verbal communication to the emergence of the child's understanding about referential communication, and to between and within socio-economic status differences in maternal and child behavior. The kinds of verbal and non-verbal experience that promote intellectual development are considered within the frames of both observed changes within children and cross-sectional studies of individual differences in mother-child interaction. The idea that the child's performance is context sensitive is one of the general ideas that has been taken increasingly into account. Two chapters pay close attention to this issue; both treat it as a challenge to experimental and theoretical ingenuity, recognizing that the child is an active participant in situations where he is observed and that the challenge is to divine the principles regulating the child's behavior.
  • Sensory Restriction

    Effects on Behavior
    • 1st Edition
    • Duane P. Schultz
    • English
    Sensory Restriction: Effects on Behavior focuses on the presentation of experimental findings on sensory deprivation and their connection to behavior. The book first offers information on the theoretical framework and physiological effects of sensory restriction. Discussions focus on arousal and the reticular activating system; cortical arousal as a function of level of stimulus variation; possible basis for individual differences in level of arousal; galvanic skin response; biological changes; and other physiological findings. The manuscript also ponders on perceptual and motor effects, affective changes, and differences in tolerance for sensory restriction. Topics include sensory restriction research, therapeutic effects of sensory restriction, and tolerance as a function of need for stimulation. The text also ponders on the effects of social isolation, including individual and small group social isolation. The book is a valuable source of data for readers interested on the effects of sensory restriction on behavior.
  • Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism

    • 1st Edition
    • David Z. Levine
    • Charles Tilly + 1 more
    • English
    Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism deals with the impact of early capitalism on the strategies of family formation among four sets of English villagers in the period before the wholesale switch-over to factory industry. This era, roughly speaking from 1550 to 1850, has been variously described as ""traditional,"" ""preindustrial,"" and, more recently, ""protoindustrial."" However, the author sees it as a stage in the transition from feudalism to capitalism—a halfway house. The book begins by placing the study in the context of the larger debate concerning nascent capitalism, early rural industrialization, and the growth of population. Separate chapters then discuss the growth and structure of the framework knitting industry in Shepshed and the social implications of this economic change; the patterns of immigration, population turnover, and generational replacement in Shepshed and Bottesford; and industrial involution and domestic organization in 1851. Subsequent chapters deal with the demographic implications of rural industrialization; the relationship between economic opportunity and family formation; and relationships among the expectation of marriage, bridal pregnancy, and illegitimacy.
  • Labor Supply and Public Policy

    A Critical Review
    • 1st Edition
    • Michael C. Keeley
    • English
    Labor Supply and Public Policy: A Critical Review deals with the theoretical and empirical econometric research done on the determinants of labor supply and with the effects of public policies on labor supply. This book reviews the various estimates made from studies concerning the economics of labor supply and evaluates the econometric methods that these studies have used. This text also analyzes the labor-supply phenomena, the costs of the different public programs, as well as, the implications of the empirical findings of these studies. The emphasis is on empirical research: many policies that are made depend on the scale of changes in the wage rates and non-market (household) income on hours of work. This book also focuses more on the determinants of the allocation of time between the market and household sectors. The text notes that by using the means of the estimates in the different studies under review, the labor-supply response to public policies involving net wages or income, shows a substantial (but not overwhelming) reaction. This book then correlates this finding with the tax and transfer programs, such as food stamps, unemployment insurance, AFDC (aid to families with dependent children), and NIT (negative income tax). This book is suitable for economists, social workers, and policy makers who are involved in social services, community development, welfare, taxation, labor, and employment.